Cedar Rapids engaged Abl to conduct a District Scheduling Audit for their middle and high schools to better understand how well they were addressing equity and access, maximizing resource efficiency, and optimizing teaching and learning. Abl conducted an analysis of student, teacher, and room scheduling data, focusing on:

• The audit found that white students were more likely to be enrolled in rigorous courses, while students of color were overrepresented in intervention courses. Department heads determined that enrollment practices varied across schools and limited access to advanced courses for some student groups. For example, relying on teacher recommendations to determine Algebra 1 enrollment for 9th graders resulted in fewer students of color taking Algebra 1. One school found that when all students were automatically enrolled in Algebra 1, many more were successful than predicted.
• Some schools were found to have significantly higher student loads than others. (“Student load” refers to how many distinct students a staff member interacts with. The higher the student load, the more relationships with students and their families an educator must maintain, the more assignments they are responsible for assessing, etc.) This put an unfair burden on those teachers and limited the individualized attention students received.
• Having a 3rd party analyze and present the scheduling data helped Cedar Rapids school and district leaders see the unintended tradeoffs their previous schedules had allowed. Staff buy-in for changes to the schedule increased when they understood how previous practices had negatively impacted their students and colleagues.